The sculptural group of "Orpheus and the Sirens" consists of three almost life-size terracotta statues. Originally characterized by a lively polychromy and partly restored in modern times, it represents the mythical episode taken from the saga of the Argonauts. The two Sirens sing their deadly song, while in front of them, the singer Orpheus, opening his lips in a melodious song, saves the sailors from danger. Seated on a throne with traces of the original colored decoration, he holds in his right hand a fragment of a plectrum, and in the other hand perhaps a stringed instrument, now lost.

It is likely that a work of such grandeur and accuracy, created in Taranto at the end of the 4th century B.C., adorned a rich tomb in the city, where monumental tombs decorated with terracotta elements are known.
This is an invaluable work resulting from an illegal excavation in an archaeological area of the region in the 1970s and subsequently illicitly exported to the United States of America.

Apollonius Rhodius recounts in the Argonautica that, returning from the mission of the Golden Fleece, the Argonauts arrive at the island of the Sirens, who enchant and kill anyone who lands there. Here the heroes are saved thanks to the intervention of the Thracian singer Orpheus, who, playing the lyre and singing a lively song, fills the sailors' ears, saving them from the voices of the maidens. According to some, the Sirens, astonished by their defeat, throw themselves from the cliffs.
The two Sirens, depicted as bird-like creatures with a woman's body according to the oldest iconography, stand on long legs with claws anchored to the rock, wearing a short dress cinched at the waist ending with a fan-shaped tail. One Siren sings, raising her arms upwards, the other, with almost completely preserved curls, touches her chin bending the other arm in a posture often used to express pain.

In front of them, Orpheus, seated on a throne with traces of the original polychrome decoration, rests his feet on a stool. He wears only a cloak, wrapped around his legs and over his left shoulder leaving his chest exposed. The hair, probably worked separately, is lost. He barely opens his lips, perhaps in song, in his right hand he holds the fragment of a plectrum, in the other he should have held a stringed instrument, now lost.
The myth is rare and peculiar and can say something about the deceased who chose it. The figure of Orpheus, in fact, in the 4th century B.C. is a symbol of the triumph of harmony over disorder, a fundamental concept of Pythagorean political and philosophical thought, particularly widespread in Magna Graecia, pursued by the philosopher Aristoxenus of Taranto and loved by Archytas, who ruled Taranto in the second half of the 4th century B.C. It could therefore be imagined that the tomb adorned with the statues of Orpheus and the Sirens belonged to an initiate of the Orphic-Pythagorean religion.